As the world becomes increasingly more reliant on the Internet and digital devices, digital marketing will only increase in importance. However, while methods of generating organic web traffic such as SEO and content marketing may boost your online presence, that isn’t all you can do. Paid media is another avenue that you should look to explore in your digital marketing efforts, combining it with the other forms of digital marketing that you use. Although some people shy away from paid media due to budgetary reasons, it still can be an extremely effective way to generate more traffic to your website. So what exactly is paid media, and how does it fit into your digital marketing efforts? Let’s take a look.
Paid Media Defined
Paid media is a form of digital marketing where the advertiser pays a third party to display their advertisement. You can most commonly find paid media on search engine results pages or social media platforms. On search engines, brands can pay to have their advertisements listed at the top of the results page, completely bypassing all organic results. If you’ve used a search engine before, you’ve likely seen the promoted search results at the top of the page. Using paid media on social platforms is very similar, as you can pay to promote a post and have it shown to a much wider audience. Unlike other forms of digital marketing, paid media is not owned or earned, making it much more like traditional advertising in a sense.
Benefits of Paid Media
At first, you may not see why you would use paid media in digital marketing when there are so many ways to organically improve your search engine rankings. However, there still are many benefits to using paid media. First, paid media is a fantastic way to quickly draw traffic to your website. While other forms of digital marketing such as SEO may require months of preparation and work before you see meaningful results, paid media can start increasing traffic almost immediately. In addition, paid media can be a fantastic way of getting your brand’s name out there and building brand awareness. Reaching audiences through organic means doesn’t always work, and sometimes great advertisements and content can fall by the wayside and be ignored. Paid media can be a fantastic way of ensuring that the content and advertisements that you create actually get seen by audiences and get a chance to promote your brand.
Drawbacks of Paid Media
Although there are several positives of using paid media, there also are several drawbacks to deal with as well. First, the cost of paid media is a big issue for brands that don’t have a large marketing budget. As the name suggests, you need to pay to run paid media campaigns, which smaller brands can’t always afford to do. In addition, paid media advertisements may be viewed as less credible by users since they did not appear organically in their search. As a result, certain users won’t click on your paid media advertisements because they feel that it isn’t relevant to their search. Finally, paid media is an extremely competitive landscape. To have your ad displayed, you need to successfully bid for that particular keyword or search. However, with lots of competition, the bidding price can quickly get out of hand, making paid media much less cost-effective. Although there are some drawbacks to paid media, you should avoid them with solid research and planning. If done correctly, paid media can be very effective, just make sure that you watch out for its various pitfalls.
